Log:Sith Empire: Thyferra - The Pitiless Wave
Sith Empire: Thyferra - The Pitiless Wave
OOC Date: June 13, 2022
Location: Thyferra
Participants: Sith Empire: Tamsin Cas, Imani, and Darth Ferren
Thyferra!
The Sith had declared 'custody' of the planet weeks ago, and events have conspired to bring a landing party to the planet's surface here on the outer wilds of the planet. Far removed from the hustle and bustle of the large-scale industrial grind of Xucphra City, a sprawling compound set up by the native Vratix to breed the smaller insectoid species, Knytix.
The compound is essentially a massive ranch, run by the Vratix for the Vratix. Ringed in by a wall of the particular sort of hard, durable material formed by the salivary excretions of the Knytix, the ranch is built of the same material, rows on rows of short, tubular constructions standing parallel to each other.
The Sith landing team sets down to rendesvous inside the compound, to a scattering of panicked Vratix, large, six-limbed mantids whose rear legs are largely vestigial. Ferren strides down the ramp onto the well-packed soil, head turning to scan the interior. "Remarkable resourcefulness. Two guesses on how our forebears were able to subdue the hive mind behind such sophisticated social planning," he remarks sardonically.
Tamsin, armored and helmed as she always was, stepped down from the ship, moving to settle into formation with Ferren and the others in the small team. "I think I would only need one." Her tone, even modulated, was mild, as she took in the complex, the housing, the defensive wall. "They show remarkable cleverness in the use of their natural environment." That was clearly worth mentioning, "And likely equally useful to the work being done here, else why bother destroying them at all?"
"Was it overwhelming force?" Imani asks, bedecked out in that spiff armor that she was provided by the Sith. She has her helmet firmly on, and her weapon already in hand. "It's that, or..." she taps a finger on the side of her head. "You know, all of your stuff." She has no idea the correct answer, she's not a history buff. She's not a buff of much beyond hand to hand combat, but she's really good at that which makes her useful enough to keep around.
"Why bother destroying them?" Ferren replies, his brow arching as he glances towards Tamsin. "Because I paid them to. A few credits in the right places, an ignored fundamental resource suddenly under attack. Panic," he explains calmly, "is simple to generate." He spreads his arms wide, cape hanging heavily behind him as he strides further into the ranch. "And now we arrive as saviors to protect the precious..." his eyes cloud, looking off into the distance as he consults a mental note. "Knytix."
Dropping his arms, he turns and looks back at the other two. "Of course you're wondering, if they're my agents, are we here as a show only?" He shakes his head, pointing at the nearest Vratix, one having either grown bolder than the rest or coaxed out by the others as a potential sacrifice. "The natives are not that easily fooled. Besides, my agents don't /know/ they're my agents, and they /have/ been paid to wipe out this farming facility."
If Ferren was expecting some sort of outraged response from the Sith doctor (Was that an inherent contradiction? Best not to think about it), there was nothing, beyond a nod of her head, "The best rescues are the ones you plan yourself." She turned to study the lone figure who was stepping forward to greet them, and she moved, not to intercept, but to present herself. Armored and helmed, yes, but with no weapons in hand. Brave or foolish, words that could, potentially, be applied to either one.
Imani listens, weapon propped up against her shoulder as her gaze sweeps the terrain around them. She doesn't have a lot of input on the plan of action, she's a point her at the target and tell her to go type, and she's fully aware of that fact. He points at a Vratix, studying the thing with an unseen curious expression.
"There is a complication," Ferren notes with scant concern. "They have a seismic device of some kind that cracks open the earth. This is what you get when you work with eco-terrorists," the dark lord decides with a shrug. "The three of us should be able to handle it."
As if on cue, the ground begins to vibrate underfoot, drawing the attention of the dozens of Vratix manning the knytix farm. The human-sized insects turn as a single organism towards the west, and the outer wall begins to develop cracks and drops loose pebbles before their eyes. A high mechanical whine fills the air, and the Vratix scatter, fanning out over the ranch's interior and herding loose kyntix, smaller mantids the size of small cats or alarmingly large rats, towards the nearest breeding silos and safety.
"As long as we don't need to herd those creatures." Clearly, she meant the small insects. But that was said only in passing, as Tamsin decided to forego trying to introduce herself and, instead, moved towards where they could see the wall beginning to shake and fracture. Still, she had no weapon drawn, but her hands clenched, fingers rubbing against each other as she narrowed her focus, bent her will to the task of trying to hold the wall together. "The longer the machine runes, the better chance we have to locate it, and the terrorists wielding it."
Imani's gaze goes back to Ferren as he mentions the seismic device, then looks down at the ground right in time for it to start shaking. She adopts a wider stance to keep her balance, weapon sliding down from her shoulder to hold it at a less casual, slightly safer angle. "You really see the benefit of the whole hive mind thing when you see them all turn like that with the same goal. Not that I want anything like that, but uses of it are easy to see." She watches as an alarmingly large rat sized creature is ushered toward the silo, head shaking. "I'm definitely out of my element when it comes to herding. Not that I won't try if I need to, but being good at it may be beyond me."
"Never fret, I have years of experience corralling insects," Ferren remarks sardonically, advancing behind Tamsin towards the wall that has begun to disintegrate. The Sith doctor's efforts are holding the pieces in place for now, even as the cracks begin to widen and more material of the wall unmoors itself from its neighbor. It's only regurgitated earth cemented by a particular blend of bug-spit enzymes, after all.
Not every eco-terrorist is content to wait for the breach to open. Two white, furry arms reach over the lip of the hardened earth and a probiscus-mouthed head with four staring eyes appears over it, followed shortly by the rest of the Talz as it clambers into the knytix ranch. An outraged TOOT later, he draws a weapon and levels it at Imani.
Tamsin had stopped, weight centered, attention focused as the machinery whined, the sound of the machine almost angry, as it tried to bring down the wall. Perhaps it would be a contest of technology versus mysticism, as Tamsin maintained her hold on the pieces of the wall. Had her face been visible behind the mask, the sight of eyes and then a face peeking over the wall, which, surely, should have come down by now, might have brought a smile to her face, "rats coming out of the woodwork."
"I'm glad one of us does," Imani says cheerfully, but that cheer settles to something a touch more serious when Laffy coes into view. The weapon is leveled on her and she doesn't wait to see if he's going to shoot, springing into action immediately. The first swipe of her weapon glances off armor harmlessly, but the second finds purchase, leaving behind an ugly wound as the weapon is withdrawn.
The high mechanical whine continues, joined by the muted sound of gathering grumbling at the wall's refusal to come down from the would-be breachers on the other side.
Within the walls of the compound, the Talz has drawn on Imani, but the quick martial artist engages before the TOOT-ing terrorist. Imani hit first, but the tooter fires back with a vicious blast from the hip, the bolt crashing into the armored woman's helmet, ringing it like a bell.
"Bad luck," Ferren mutters, reaching out a hand towards the Talz in response and throwing the shaggy creature against the wall bodily, and while the gun-wielding goon has the wind knocked out of him in an airless *tweet*, he keeps his feet.
The effects of the machine have begun to spread, however, beyond the barricade. Tremors rumble the earth underfoot, and dust and pebbles begin to drop into the knytix enclosures from above.
"Sounds like they're gathering on the other side of the wall." The trouble with multiple vectors of attack, is that they always came back to bite you in the worst places and at the worst time. As the Talz and Imani metaphorically crashed into each other, Tamsin's expression darkened, as she felt the injury to one and then the other. And a decision would have to be made. The hold she had on the wall held for a moment longer, before Tamsin's hand reached down for her saber, igniting the blade before she threw it in the direction of the Talz, the weapon humming with that angry growl as it spun into the Talz, separating his head from his shoulders, before it flew back to Tamsin's hand, as her head turned to allow her to catch sight of Imani.
Imani's bell has absolutely been rung. She managed to get the one good hit in before the rifle fires and connects with her helmet. It's a good shot, and it takes part of the helmet with it. That's probably what kept her alive, but there is absolutely an injury there, bad enough that she staggers back and hits the ground. She's still conscious enough to be moving, but she's not moving well, or fast, or in a way that puts her dropped weapon back in her hand so it's pretty clear she is /hurt/.
When Tamsin drops her attention from the wall, the wall similarly drops, the disparate pieces of particulate held together by her will dissolving almost as sand. The landscape changes dramatically by this revelation.
Behind the wall, three heavily-loaded eco-terrorists wait, each a different alien speices, each wearing a bandolier of high explosives. You know, just in case the seismic destructor didn't get the job done.
Speaking of seismic destruction, the nearest building-tube of knytix breeding central has chosen this moment to collapse. Several Vratix are crushed by the rubble, some come clattering out into the open, all seem alert to the peril. This is nothing compared to the knytix.
The knytix are legion and, lacking the higher thought of their stewards, those that are not crushed in the debris pour forth in a calf-high wave of insect legs, antenna, and staring emeraldine eyes, spreading out in all directions.
Tamsin turned, even as the walls began to come down and the insects began to swarm, turning to take a knee, a bubble of blue energy popping up around her as she began to pull equipment from her person, "I'll see what I can do to get you up and moving." Not the best time to practice medicine, but that was combat for you. You did what you could in the time you had.
"Hope he wrangles the insects good," Imani murmurs as she watches Tamsin kneel over her. It's a surreal experience to watch on the ground while almost dead, the swarming of insects, the flash of sabers, the white hot pain that is an ugly burn on her head and probably a concussion. She's not entirely with it, and by the time Tamsin is done with her work she's only slightly more with it. There's a sharpness to her eyes that wasn't there though, so that's a good sign.
Ferren pays little attention to what his cohorts are up to; he saw Imani go down and in that moment knew both that she was not dead and that she might very well end up that way in short order. Neither possibility would change the fact of the three explosive-laden terrorists his own funds had financed to launch this attack standing before him.
The trio roll into the ranch compound, the ground underfoot cracked and jagged and coming apart, the footing uncertain at best. Blaster shots fly, but it's difficult to aim with the whole world shaking like this. Darth Ferren comes in towards the Whiphid among them, lashing out with the baleful saber held in his hand, but he misteps, then the Whiphid stumbles unexpectedly, it's just a mess, no one can hit anything.
Behind them, another breeding tube goes down and another wave of knytix issue forth on the heels of their kindred, running in all directions, the first batch about to reach the fighting in the fractal fissures at the front.
Tamsin, seeing Imani was more herself, rose from the ground, the bubble which had protected her while she worked evaporating as she rose from where she had been kneeling. What supplies she still had disappeared back into her pockets as she drew her lightsaber, the blade igniting as she began to walk, even on this unstable ground, towards the three incoming terrorists. Again, that flexing of her hand, and one of the three, the Dug, went flying, the force of Tamsin's ire carrying him up, up, and away, through the air, before he dropped like a stone, over the edge of the cliff which was not far from where the insectoid enclave.
Imani is coming back to herself a little more. It takes a handful of moments, but the damaged helmet is discarded and her weapon is retrieved. She manages to get back on her feet, steadies herself, and then dives right back into work. She's not moving as quickly, or as precisely as she was before, and both attempts to strike the Whiphid miss.
"Oh NOOOOOOOooooon," the Dug eco-terroriste gruffly wails as he sails through the air and falls into the void off of the writer's page, never to be seen again, tossed by Tamsin's invisible hand. With the field of attackers thinning, the machine abruptly switches off, the whine ceasing as whoever is running the device decides that the fellows with the high explosives have probably got this well in hand.
Shots continue to fly as Ferren doggedly chases after the Whiphid, joined by Imani who boxes the alien in. Bug guts mash bright green underfoot as the dark lord tramples carelessly on the escaped pets (and local delicacy) that would never find their way to a happy Vratix home/belly. A backhanded sweep finally catches up to his opponent and the broad, tusked head rolls through the knytix tide before being pulled beneath it.
Oh, the humanity. Except not at all, because she wasn't human. Whatever, moving on. As Tamsin turned to engage her opponent, the whiphid falling and the Dug flying off into oblivion, Tamsin's feet met bug carapace and with a sickly, squelching crack, the teeming swarm broke around her feet, taking the doctor with it. She landed on even more, her robes ending up horribly coated with the effluence of bug life. She did not, immediately, attempt to claw her way free. Instead, she allowed the saber to fly, trusting her mind, at the moment, more than her hands, as the blade sailed with unerring precision, gutting the terrorist before it flew back to the hand of its maker. "The machine's down." And so was Tamsin, but not for long as she worked her way back to her feet.
This is not Imani's mission. She's still hurt, then the ground goes and has the audacity to move beneath her feet again. They're on a planet, it's not supposed to do that! She tries so very hard to keep her footing, but the combination of injury and literal shaky ground has her falling once again. Thankfully it doesn't lead to further injury, but it does lead to bug guts. So many of them. It's just awful. It's in her hair. Maybe it'll prove to be a nice conditioner, but for now she can't help but show a lil bit of dismay as she clambers back onto her feet.
"I believe you will find," Darth Ferren announces, straightening up from the Whiphid's corpse as the knytix wash over it, "that we have protected an important Vratix cultural touchstone." Annoyingly unsullied by bug guts, he gestures towards the rest of the compound; already, the surviving Vratix have regrouped, preparing to corral the escaped knytix back into the remaining pens. However, a few others head over dutifully towards the Sith landing party, clacking chitin digits reaching out to smooth the insectoid gore from their clothing, muttering clicking sounds that might be gratitude to each other.
"It is only from due caution that we will be forced to secure the place entire," he notes smugly, turning towards the ship. Only then does his satisfied mood rankle slightly, on noting the worrying angle the ship has settled at in the course of the seismic onslaught. "...Time to bug out."
